Police and the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty against Animals (SPCA) were on Monday investigating an incident in which a cat was strangled and thrown into a garden at the Bluff yacht club in Durban. Meanwhile, there is still no progress in the search for those who microwaved a live cat at the University of KwaZulu-Natal’s Pinewood residence.
Television station e.tv has been given the rights to broadcast the judgement in the fraud and corruption trial of businessman Schabir Shaik on Tuesday and Wednesday, National Prosecutions Authority spokesperson Makhosini Nkosi said on Sunday. Other media will have to apply for accreditation to cover the trial, he said.
The African National Congress’s disciplinary hearing of embattled Beaufort West politician Truman Prince has been postponed to June 6. Prince’s advocate, Charles Simon, said his client pleaded not guilty to all charges, including alleged intimidation and death threats.
The national executive committee of the African National has resolved to "act with firmness and resolve" against corruption in the party’s ranks. In a statement on Monday following a meeting of the committee at the weekend, the organisation said it act "against any members of the ANC found guilty of any misdemeanour".
Absa bank did not invite the Khulumani Support Group to discuss its multibillion-rand deal with Barclays, Khulumani said on Monday. Khulumani campaigns for the cancellation of apartheid-era state debt. Activist group Jubilee, however, maintained that it had received notice of the meeting.
Obesity is a great public-health problem, with 23% of men and 57% of women over 15 overweight, Minister of Health Manto Tshabalala-Msimang said on Monday. Seventeen percent of adolescents were found to be overweight in the Youth Risk Behaviour Survey conducted in public schools in 2002.
The Botswana Minister of Finance and Development Planning, Baledzi Gaolathe, on Sunday announced a 12% devaluation of the pula against a basket of currencies, as well as a change in the system of exchange-rate adjustments to a crawling peg rather than the discrete steps previously used, in order to improve Botswana’s competitiveness.
Those involved in lawful protests have nothing to fear from an intelligence probe into such actions, Minister of Intelligence Ronnie Kasrils said on Monday. ”Anybody who transgresses the laws of the country and foments violence, then obviously that is a criminal offence and that is to be dealt with,” he told SAFM.
Veteran grand-slam queens Lindsay Davenport and Mary Pierce battled through to a French Open quarterfinal showdown on Sunday, but Bulgarian 15-year-old Sesil Karatantcheva gave notice that the clock is ticking on the old-timers. Men’s top seed Roger Federer eased into the quarterfinals for the first time in four years.
Zimbabwe’s struggling national airline has been criticised by the government for launching a new route from Harare to Dubai which saw the national carrier recently flying home with one passenger, the state-controlled Herald newspaper reported on Monday.